Animal RightsThis summer, Animal Defense League Chicago, in conjunction
with the Activist Alliance at Roosevelt University, will be hosting
MENDING THE HEARTLAND: Building A Unified Midwestern Animal Liberation
Movement. We are calling for all interested animal rights organizers
and activists to come to Chicago, July 25th through 27th, 2008 to come
together and brainstorm, learn, discuss, and create.

MENDING THE HEARTLAND: Building a Unified Midwestern Animal Liberation
Movement

A call out for organizers, workshop proposals and attendees.

This summer, Animal Defense League Chicago, in conjunction with the
Activist Alliance at Roosevelt University, will be hosting MENDING THE
HEARTLAND: Building A Unified Midwestern Animal Liberation Movement. We
are calling for all interested animal rights organizers and activists to
come to Chicago, July 25th through 27th, 2008 to come together and
brainstorm, learn, discuss, and create.

What do we need in order for this to happen?

We need you!

The first open planning meeting for the conference will be announced
soon. We invite all individuals and groups interested in organizing for
the conference to attend this open meeting to help with the every day
details of the conference, along with approving workshops, getting
sponsors, etc. While we at ADL Chicago hope the conference will be a
melding of organizations and individuals, we are organizing this
conference along 4 main principles, outlined and explained below in our
mission statement.

Additionally, we are looking for workshop presenters! Proposal
submissions will be due in June, more information will be posted soon.

Website and mailing list coming soon!

Mending the Heartland Mission Statement:

The purpose of Mending the Heartland: Building a Unified Midwestern
Animal Liberation Movement is to attempt to build bridges between
grassroots activist groups around the Midwest so that we can begin to
work together more closely on animal rights issues. We in Chicago have
noticed that on the coasts there seems to be much more interaction
between groups from various cities to combine their efforts, help
support each others' actions and generally offer more support to one
and other as animal rights activists. While this is harder to do in the
Midwest, due to the distances between cities, we feel it is both
possible and necessary for activists in this region to come together
and network so that we can learn from each other and become more effective in our activism, both as individual activists and as a more united
animal rights movement.

The hope is that by building more solidarity amongst the various groups
scattered across the Midwest, we will be able to help strengthen our
movement and more effectively fight for animal liberation. Be that by
refining our own regular events to be more effective, or by coming
together more often for large scale, multi-group sponsored events.

We at ADL Chicago wanted this conference to be shaped and organized by
a variety of organizations and people around the Midwest so as to include
voices other then our own. However, we also don't want the organizational process to be crippled by infighting. For that reason and in an attempt to avoid infighting in the organization of this conference, we at ADL Chicago have written up a mission statement to outline the ethics and tactics this conference supports and what issues will be discussed at the event. It is not mandatory that everyone organizing for this conference be in lock step agreement on every issue raised, but it is necessary that all organizing groups, workshop presenters, sponsors or whoever else are aware that these issues will be being discussed at the conference and at the very least are willing and comfortable to be a part of the conference knowing that the following issues will be raised over the course of the weekend:

* A dedication to liberation, not welfarism:

This conference stands for complete animal liberation, not "bigger
cages, longer chains" and the workshops, sponsors and presenters must
reflect that ethic. We feel that many of the national animal rights
organizations have started down a road that only reinforces the
property status of animals and does nothing to challenge the industries we are opposing or the mindsets we are attempting to change. Topics such as
these and critiques of the larger animal rights movement will be
present at this conference as we feel that combating tactics that we feel are
harmful to the furtherance of animal rights is just as important as
implementing the tactics we feel are effective.

* A commitment to ending all forms of oppressions:

While this may be first and foremost an animal rights conference, we
believe all forms of oppression to be interlinked. Many people believe
that other issues (such as racism, sexism, homophobia, etc) should be
put aside when fighting for the rights of animals. We believe that far
too often issues such as these are ignored by our movement in an
attempt to appear more "unified" and that this single-mindedness is not only
unethical and short sighted, but also corrosive to our movement. We are
specifically inviting and preparing for populations that are not often
included (or assimilated and therefore, in a way, silenced) in the larger animal rights movements, especially in the Midwest: women; people
of color; transgender and gender variant people; queer people/people of
varying sexual preferences and orientation; and parents and other
guardians of children. As such, we seek to have workshops highlighting
the connections between all forms of oppression and putting our
movements shortcomings on these issues under the magnifying glass. We
believe that criticism and reflection on oppressive behaviors within
our movement is essential in order to combat those problems. In keeping
with this ethic, oppressive behavior will not be tolerated at the
conference. Any conference attendees who behave in oppressive manners towards others will be asked to leave.

* An Open Support For Direct Action And The Animal Liberation Front:

This conference will stand up openly in support of the Animal
Liberation Front. It is our belief that the actions of the ALF are essential
elements of the fight for animal liberation and this conference will
feature workshops and presenters that reflect that belief.

* Law Enforcement/ Government Officials Are Not Welcome/Implementing
Security Culture:

We understand this is a hard one to enforce, but felt it necessary to
point out that we want to do everything we can to implement security
culture at this event. As such, no police officers, FBI agents or any
other such government official is welcome at the event. Please note
however, that this is nearly impossible to enforce and with the
scrutiny placed on the animal rights movement by the government, they are almost certain to be there. Keep this in mind and remember that loose lips
sink ships.

how many people would keep animals if fencing, crates, and tethering was completely abolished?

I know that I could not keep the dogs I have if I were not allowed to fence or crate them.

Of course then there is all the mandatory s/n laws, and the breed specific laws, which eat away at our rights to own the dogs we choose to.

Don't miss the part about guardianship, and dogs NOT being property. This is a pivotal point, and if we EVER lose the property battle, the fight is over. Dogs will then HAVE rights, and our own rights as "guardians" will be prohibitively restricted.

How the heck are they going to know what the dogs want??? With children and guardianship you can ask.. But you cant ask dogs..

How are we to keep that from happening? I mean, like locally and whatnot? No one around here cares pretty much.. I don't want it to happen, but if no one cares.. except for a small few.. then, how do you stop it?